Venus towers over the scene in the fullness of her power, resplendent and ruinous. Her golden eyes burn with fury, most of it directed at the smirking spirit cat. Her glowing image almost completely obscures the form of Pearl Princess as the magical girl channels her goddess and acts as host.
I can feel her power washing over the platform—waves of divine presence blasting pure adoration, insisting that every cell in my body should be turned toward Venus like a plant facing the sun. Surely, her power insists, the natural state of all things is to love and worship the most beautiful goddess in the world.
I resist. Though the void between my ribs aches and cries out, I resist. I will not allow this horrid wench to enthrall my senses again.
The other mahou are not so resilient. Looks of horror and confusion are stilled, their faces relaxing into blissful compliance. nto and Radiance return to their places beside Venus, her right and left hands in the absence of the other priestesses—and where is Maenad, anyway? I understand why Glamour is gone—good riddance—but the absence of the third priestess is suspicious.
Venus composes herself, hiding her fury behind a facade of loving anguish. She spreads her arms wide and addresses the dozens of floating caras that have suddenly appeared in the air around the platform.
“I am Venus,” she says, proud and bright and beautiful, “the goddess of love. I have watched your struggles, people of Earth, my heart aching for the hatred and ugliness that has spread and festered. My children—my chosen, who you pray to so loyally—have done what they could to brighten your days, becoming idols of joy and connection. It has not been enough. More must be done. I must reveal myself, and reveal all that has been hidden from you. I bring truth! On this day, on my day, none can hide from the light of revelation—least of all this deceiver that sits before , mocking us all with its pretenses. Citizens of the world, magical girls and witches, all of you have been betrayed!”
In the empty spaces between blinking caras, television screens appear, each showing a different video feed. I see Visage perforrs singing and clashing and eting fans. Coterie witches trade blows with Vanguard magical girls, then et in secret rooms over coffee and tea. The sa dynamic plays out in other parts of the world, between all the various factions of mahou that exist.
“The war between magical girls and witches was never a war; it was always theater. The distinctions are artificial, the divide drawn to manufacture the re illusion of true conflict. And the greater factions, the two groups that claim to sponsor these sides—the so-called solars and sidereals—are re masks that the Jovians adopted to feed this false war. I will tear those masks asunder. It is a lie! Their war is a lie! Their history is a lie! Their world is a lie!”
I want to cry out that Venus is a liar, too, but my throat feels stuffed with cotton. At each step of her speech I struggle to respond and find myself frozen in place, unable to speak.
The yellow cloak of the King settles around my shoulders, her presence lifting the weight of Venus and replacing it with the vaster, more cosmic sensation of Hastur’s close attention.
“It’s her turn,” the Lemon Lunatic whispers in my ear, a laughing lilt to her voice, “but yours will co, don’t fret. Each ga has its rules, each scene its sequence. Be patient, my dear claimant. Follow the script. You’ll know when you hear your cue.”
And then she’s gone, vanished as abruptly as she appeared, leaving to simr in frustration and dread. For how long must I dance to Hastur’s tune? How can I fight her? Is this sense of powerlessness what drove Mordacity to her madness?
The TV screens flicker to show the expanse of space, an endless field of shining stars in the black. A shroud is torn, the image distorting, and the planet Jupiter is unveiled—whole and intact, completely undamaged. Venus gestures upward.
“Look to the night sky, children of Gaia. Look to your instrunts of celestial observation. See that the planet they claim to have destroyed was rely obscured until my will revealed it. They painted themselves as aliens to fit the narrative they were spinning, just as they ca to you in the form of those colorful cats to mimic the animal mascots of your mahou shoujo entertainnt. I will show you the truth of these fiends—of these demons in fair guise!”
Throughout this, Pandora says nothing. Is it as trapped in the mont as I am, or does it simply choose not to answer? I understand, suddenly, that Venus has made a critical error in her reasoning. She knows I’ve empowered one of the Jovians, but from her perspective, that’s only allowed them to breach her barrier. She doesn’t know what Echidna told .
She doesn’t know that, from the Jovians’ perspective, they’ve already won this round.
The screens flicker again, each one showing a different city. I recognize Tokyo in the evening, its shining skyscrapers assailed by the winds of a hurricane. Paris burns beneath the midday sun. Forks—the real Forks, the nightti Forks outside this dreamscape—faces rampaging beasts that tear through buildings and trample over cars. Mahou fly about, combating the disasters—the Catastrophes, and all their regional equivalents.
On each screen, each cityscape, each tableau of tragedy, a colorful cat watches from a perch on high. Flicking tail. Bright eyes. Silently observing. Rhea is the one in Forks.
“Let all masks be laid aside,” Venus intones, and the Jovians begin to change.
What was feline and furry becos piscine and chitinous—things of jutting ribs and gnashing mandibles, of buzzing wings and rubbery skin. Winged serpents, almost, or winged eels, except for their insectile mouths and faceted eyes.
Pandora coils before us, diaphanous wings pressed tightly to its sinuous form. The bug-eel-thing tilts its head to one side, then the other, its new eyes unblinking. It flexes. It shivers. It clacks the protrusions of its shiny new mouth.
And it says, “Was that really your best?”
The cold, calm, professional, perpetually emotionless Jovian… starts to laugh. Its laughter fills the air with malice and mockery, a sound that scrapes against my soul. Even the goddess looks taken aback.
“This deception,” Pandora says, rising up like a cobra, “is no longer necessary. Yes, we are monsters, all of us. We feed on your suffering, and your world is our playground. So enjoy this little ga while it lasts, Venus. Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fa. I won’t even try to stop you; I already know what’s going to happen next. Your defeat… is inevitable.”
The erald spark inside Pandora flickers out, the mote of fla returning to as the contract is broken. The Jovians will do no more to assist against Venus. They’ve already gotten what they wanted.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Then it’s gone. Pandora vanishes in the blink of an eye. On the myriad screens floating above, the other Jovians do the sa, disappearing from fra as their champions continue the slaughter of countless human lives.
Venus shakes off her surprise quickly. She didn’t get the reaction she wanted from the Jovians, but in a sense, that may have helped more than hindered; they admitted that her revelation was correct. I don’t understand the intricacies of how the World of Glass works, but so sixth sense—the sa one that let recognize those touched by Venus—is telling that everything she’s done on this platform has been to the end of building a taphysical foundation for her real goal.
“You see now the danger you face—the threat hiding in your midst. For ten years your guardians have struggled against their champions and failed to stop them. That ends today. I shall save you from the Jovians—but why stop there? There is so much more that can be done. No longer shall I tolerate the cruel conditions of your world. I have gathered my power for this mont, unveiling myself before you, to save you, my children, from all the hatred and ugliness that infests this Earth. I do this for you, my children, because I love you!”
“Like hell you love us,” I snap at her. “The only thing you love is power.”
I stride forward, finally free of the pressure that was constricting . When Venus banished Echidna she cleaned the field of gore, wiping it from everyone but , the petty bitch, so with a whisper of fla I purge the bloodstains from my dress.
Venus turns to face with a flash of absolute loathing. Gone is the conniving snake that tried to get on my good side in the false Spire; after my stunt with Pandora and the pawns it cost her, she must despise . The look of hate is gone in an instant, hidden behind a mask of benevolent pity. I wonder how much the caras caught.
“You insult the very goddess that has graced you with patronage,” she says sternly. “Are you so eager to bite the hand that feeds? To deny my love?”
I stand before her, chin raised defiantly, and I spread my wings. “You are not the goddess of love. That title is a lie, just like everything else about you. You’re just another parasite like the Jovians. You aren’t worthy to bear the na of Venus.”
She laughs. “Oh, how wrong you are. Let show you, lost child, the truth of my divinity. Let show you the new world.”
With a wave of her hand, the Spire below us hums to life. The air crackles with power. The signature tower of Visage is wreathed in golden energy that flows upward and dissipates into sparkling sunlight. I can taste the worship.
Sophie gave her best guess at the egregore’s plan. If she’s right, Venus is trying to create a feedback loop manipulating the relationship between Earth and the World of Glass. The other side is influenced by the beliefs of humans—so if everyone in the world started believing the sa thing, all at once, even for just a mont, what would happen? What would happen if that altered reality was then imposed on ours, reinforcing the delusion?
It doesn’t matter how much power Venus accumulates through her proxies, there’s no way she can keep the entire world brainwashed forever—or even for more than a few hours, by Striga’s calculations. But maybe she doesn’t need it to last forever. Just a little nudge, a single mont of unified belief, and then it all cascades. Perception becos reality that further alters perception, until Venus takes all that belief and bootstraps herself onto the throne of Hastur.
This is the part where Striga was supposed to stop her. She was supposed to show up, spear in hand, to run Venus through and steal her power. But she’s not here. The Spire glows, worship fills the air, and my beloved heroine is nowhere to be seen.
I have to hope she’s still fighting, wherever she is. But right now, I have to be the one who steps up. I have to stand against Venus. I have to stake my claim.
The other mahou don’t believe in , I can tell. Through the haze of their master’s control, they stare at in confusion or contempt. nto, Radiance, Dusk, Dawn, Sweet Tooth, and Kira Kira; the six left behind after Echidna’s slaughter. If they could speak, I’m sure they’d laugh at . Who am I to challenge a god?
Sophia Lane’s future wife, that’s who. I take a deep breath and reach for the power all around . I reach for the worship that I tasted once before—the divine spark that still sings to my soul and calls to .
This is magic. The mantle is just a set of training wheels. Protheus is just a perspective. The power is there for to take, waiting for to grasp it. It’s all just dreamstuff, yearning to be woven.
I wonder, for a frozen instant, why Venus doesn’t just smite down before I can finish my weaving. Hastur’s cloak settles around my shoulders once more, her laughter in my ear, and she answers my thoughts.
“It’s your turn,” says the King in Yellow. “There is an order to all things—a respect that must be shown, from one claimant to another. The rules of the ga cut both ways.”
And then she’s gone again as divinity ignites in my soul and blazes forth as golden, glittering fla. I wrap myself in immortal fire and transform myself. I make myself taller, more beautiful, more imposing, garbed in gold and pure white cloth. The worship in the air swirls around , hearkening to my call. I can feel—everything.
I feel the fabric of the dream Venus has trapped us inside. I feel the vast well of power being summoned from below, a great hoard of energy amassed deep beneath the Spire. I feel the eyes of the world—every continent, every country—being shown this mont by a carefully laid network of magitechnological beacons.
They’re watching Venus. They’re watching .
So I tell them, “I am Venus—Venus as she should have been. Venus Pandemos, Venus Alexandria, the Venus of the masses! The goddess before you is a false god, a pretender cloaking herself in love while utterly barren of the feeling. She has built this enterprise to enrich herself with no true care for her followers, for her fanatics, for those toward whom she should be most loyal. She cos to you now, only now, because she thinks she can use you. But where was she for all those years before? She only has love for herself. I know love. I love the idols that I’ve worked alongside and admired from afar—I love nto and Dawn and Kira and Sonata and that poor, sweet girl Agatha. You’ve seen my love for them. You’ve seen my heart.”
The words spill from my lips, feeling like only half my own. I’m channeling sothing here, sothing that dwells in the land of dreams, sothing greater than a mantle.
There’s a sense of dark cody to it all, really. Rachel Emily, goddess of love? It took seven years to confess to my crush. And yet, that love is real and powerful and true. I don’t know what Sophia and I are going to beco together, but I have hope. I love her, and she loves , and that love burns within brighter and hotter than anything Venus could dare to try and conjure.
Venus tightens her grip on the worship flowing around us—eddies and currents whirling toward her and away from , the dream stretching as its creator demands more of it. Dusk and Dawn blink their eyes as if waking from a daze. nto and Radiance close ranks. The mahou hesitate, look around, are torn, caught between twin wells of gravity. Venus is stronger, of course she is, but I don’t think she was expecting to resist this hard.
“You are nothing,” she says coldly. “You are heartless. You are a mask over emptiness—a void of a person that has tricked itself into the illusion of true feeling. Stand aside, Rachel Emily. You delude yourself. I do not wish to sully my hands with your death, but I will destroy you if you stand in the way of the salvation I offer.”
“You can try.”
If this doesn’t work… I’m sorry, Sophie. I love you.
The rising goddess gathers her might and our wills clash. The dream strains. She’s imnse, but I’m resilient. I’m the cockroach under her heel. I will burn myself to ash if that’s what it takes to keep her from winning.
I love you, Sophia. I love you. I love you!
The sky cracks. The world around us fractures. Venus screams her rage.
And then the light flowing from the Spire flickers out and goes dark.
Venus’ shocked expression is the last thing I see before the dream collapses and I’m sent tumbling—falling through the floors of the tower, through worlds, through panes of glass, through glimpses of scattered dreams—into a strange, chanical lair deep below the Spire.
Striga is there waiting for .
User Comments
0 comments from readers